Jesse Ertz inspires K-State teammates with motivational speech

MANHATTAN — Jesse Ertz may or may not play Saturday, but the injured Kansas State quarterback is making his presence felt.

Ertz, who sat out last week’s loss against TCU due to a knee injury, spoke words of encouragement to his teammates prior to Monday’s practice.

"I thought Jesse said something pretty good yesterday right before practice," wide receiver Dalton Schoen said Tuesday at K-State’s weekly media session. "He said, ‘Before the season we were a nationally-ranked team, a team to be feared, a team with a ton of talent. We’re still that team.’ "

The Wildcats were ranked No. 20 in The Associated Press preseason poll and talked about not only winning a Big 12 championship but making a run at a College Football Playoff berth. That talk has subsided with losses in three of the past four games, leaving them with a 3-3 record and No. 9 Oklahoma coming to Bill Snyder Family Stadium for a 3 p.m. kickoff Saturday.

"It’s a big game, just like all of them," Schoen said. "It’s another top-10 opponent coming into our stadium. Obviously, our backs are against the wall a little bit at 3-3 so we know it’s a game we have to be focused for and go out and get it.

"We lost a couple of games and I think we let it get us down a little bit too much. We’re capable of doing some great things but we just have to go out there and do it. If we get a good start to the game, it would be big for us to get the ball rolling and get that confidence back for us."

Ertz’s status to play against the Sooners remains in doubt, but coach Bill Snyder is leaving the door open between Ertz and sophomore Alex Delton as the starting quarterback.

"It kind of depends on Jesse and his health," Snyder said. "I want to believe that he’s going to be able to (play) but I don’t know that, yet. We haven’t defined that."

While his physical health is in question, Ertz’s emotional game was in top form Monday.

"It was right before practice and it was probably the longest we’ve talked as players before we started the practice," said senior kicker Matthew McCrane. "Jesse was extremely motivational in the middle of the group.

"It was awesome. I’ve had my fair share of injuries and I understand that it’s not fun. Jesse had some things to say after the game and he was frustrated just like all of us. When an injury happens you’re down and you’re frustrated and I think that’s something the fans don’t exactly understand. You kind of go to a dark place when you’re injured and you can’t play the game that you love, so I appreciate Jesse getting up in front of the team to get us back and motivating us for the game this weekend."

Ertz’s words carried over to the practice field.

"I was interested in seeing how they were going to respond and I thought it was positive," Snyder said. "The emotion or spirit to initiate the practice was good. We had a couple of leaders in our program step up and do their part as best as they could."

With the season at the midway point, McCrane said the Wildcats have a chance to hit the reset button.

"It’s tough," McCrane said. "For me, it’s easy to say it’s just like resetting after a missed field goal. You could say the team missed a field goal last Saturday, so we have to reset. We have to have the same mentality we did when we came into the first game. We have to get bowl eligible, that’s number one. Actually, number one would be win the game this weekend. That’s our first goal, then worry about the rest as it goes along.

"Nothing has changed, like (Ertz) said. Our expectations are still good for this football team. We’re frustrated, just like everybody else — the fans and everybody. I’m confident in this football team. I’m confident we’ll be bowl eligible. We have to do our job. We have to get the ball in the end zone and score. Our defense has played phenomenal so we have to do what we came to do."

With the season taking a downturn, Snyder is in the position he found himself when he returned to the sideline in 2009 of having to "calm the waters" among a disgruntled fan base.

"You keep rowing the boat," Snyder said. "If you’re going to get to the other side you better not put the oars down. I think our players and coaches truly understand that. I guess it’s easy to jump in the tank and point fingers and fault one side of the ball or the other or fault coaches or fault players, but I have to do that in order to get corrections made. At the end of the day they are human beings that care and make a very defined effort to try to do as well as they can. We have to be able to put it all together and I have to define those things that we need to do in order to make that happen.

"When you lose ballgames, you have things you have to get better at. I’m not talking about just players, I think us as coaches — myself and all of us — have different things we have to address and be able to have an honest self-assessment about a variety of things and be able to make changes where changes are necessary or just become better at certain things we’re doing by putting more emphasis or less emphasis on certain things. It runs the gamut but there’s a lot of stuff in the game of football that goes on."

Contact Ken Corbitt at (785) 295-1123 or @KenCorbitt on Twitter.

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